“If that is worrying you,” said Chandon, “it may ease your mind to know that there is food and drink on the Island.  I built a cottage there two years ago, with a laboratory; I spent six weeks in it this summer; and—­ well, ships have been wrecked On Holmness, and, as an old naval officer, I’ve provided for that sort of thing.”

Miss Sally slapped her knee. (Her gestures were always unconventional.)

“We shall find ’em there!” she announced.  “I’m willing to lay you five to one in what you like.”

They changed at Taunton for Fair Anchor.  At Fair Anchor Station Sir Miles’s motor awaited them.  It had been ordered by Parson Chichester, instructed by telegram from Taunton.

The parson himself stood on the platform, but he could give no news of the missing ones.

“We’ll have ’em before nightfall,” promised Miss Sally.  “Come with us, if you will.”

So all three climbed into the motor, and were whirled across the moor, and down the steep descent into Clatworthy village, and by Clatworthy pier a launch lay ready for them with a full head of steam.

During the passage few words were said; and indeed the eager throb of the launch’s engine discouraged conversation.  Chandon steered, with his eyes fixed on the Island.  Miss Sally, too, gazed ahead for the most part; but from time to time she contrived a glance at his weary face—­ grey even in the sunset towards which they were speeding.

Sunset lay broad and level across the Severn Sea, lighting its milky flood with splashes of purple, of lilac, of gold.  The sun itself, as they approached the Island, dropped behind its crags, silhouetting them against a sky of palest blue.

They drove into its chill shadow, and landed on the very beach from which the children had watched the stag swim out to meet his death.  They climbed up by a pathway winding between thorn and gorse, and on the ridge met the flaming sunlight again.

Miss Sally shielded her eyes.

“They will be here, if anywhere,” said Sir Miles, and led the way down the long saddle-back to the entrance of the gully.

“Hullo!” exclaimed he, coming to a halt as the chimneys of the bungalow rose into view above the gorse bushes.  From one of them a steady stream of smoke was curling.

“It’s a hundred to one!” gasped Miss Sally triumphantly.

They hurried down—­to use her own expression—­like a pack in full cry.  It was Parson Chichester who claimed afterwards that he won by a short length, and lifting the latch, pushed the door open.  And this was the scene he opened on, so far as it has since been reconstructed:—­

Tilda stood with her back to the doorway and a couple of paces from it, surveying a table laid—­so far as Sir Miles’s stock of glass and cutlery allowed—­for a dinner-party of eight.  She was draped from the waist down in a crimson window-curtain, which spread behind her in a full-flowing train.  In her hand she held her recovered book—­the Lady’s Vade-Mecum; and she read from it, addressing Arthur Miles, who stood and enacted butler by the side-table, in a posture of studied subservience—­